I wonder where Mr.Ueda went.
I know!
Maybe...
He's in here.
Mr.Ueda?
No!
It's not working!
Let's get out of here.
Let's go somewhere where there's a phone.
Stand up!
Walk faster!
Hurry before we lose our head, too!
There's no bridge.
How strange... But you're right.
There was a bridge here, wasn't there?
Until yesterday, there was a bridge here.
We're entering Homego Village now.
Our first step!
Miracle Mitsui made it disappear!
It's crooked.
So he really is a spiritualist!
We're stuck here!
This isn't a toupee.
Was that corpse really Ueda?
What was that?
I have a feeling it wasn't Ueda.
Is there anything you can recognize his body with?
Like a mole on his butt?
A whirly navel?
I wouldn't know that.
All I know is that he's big.
This corpse is pretty big, too.
Big?
You can't have it too big in a relationship.
Mental problems can be very sensitive.
It's not a mental problem but a physical problem
Keep your mouth shut.
Please do not be Ueda...
Don't pray.
What are you doing?
Wow.
It's gotten stiff.
Well?
It's hard to say.
I can't tell from this.
Do you even know?
Can I compare it to yours?
Will you cut that out?
Move aside.
It's hard to say.
What am I doing?
I wonder why he came here in the middle of the night.
Was he sightseeing?
Maybe he was captured while he was asleep.
Wouldn't we have heard voices or noises?
Did you hear anything?
You were grinding your teeth too loudly!
That must've been the owls in the forest.
"A mother's agony comes once in every 25 years,
and it brings great disaster to the world."
"The only way to prevent the disaster is..."
I've seen this before.
The magic mushroom?
This picture was referring to this place.
Who cares about that.
Ueda was trying to tell us something with this.
You're taking it too far.
It's best not to snoop.
It's Miracle Mitsui!
That is, if you don't want to end up like Dr.Ueda.
What do you mean?
You saw the video, didn't you?
I've sent his head to another world.
Is that really Ueda's body?
It's all just been magic tricks hasn't it?
How can I make a bridge and the villagers vanish
with a magic trick?
I have the power to make things disappear, too.
Are you challenging me?
Are you stupid?
Magic tricks won't work against a spiritualist.
Tell me when to stop.
Ace of spades.
Put it back.
You saw it going back into the deck.
Now, hold this deck of cards.
I'll make it disappear from out of your hand.
Hold on to it tightly.
It's gone.
There's no ace of spade in there.
Let me see it.
It's gone!
It didn't go to another world, though.
The card is in your pocket.
You're good!
So?
So what?
I can show you more tricks.
Do more.
No, thanks.
I'll show you something more interesting.
Mine isn't a magic trick.
You seem curious about that structure there.
I'll make that vanish.
How did he make something that big vanish?
The next one will be...
You.
Don't looks so scared.
Haven't you seen those magic tricks where the
Bay Bridge and Eiffel Tower disappear?
I've always wondered...
where the people went when the bridge vanished.
It's been bothering me.
Don't you want to see what they went through?
You might be able to see Dr.Ueda's head.
What will you do?
You can't make me disappear.
Stop it!
No! Stop it!
Wait!
Don't worry, I won't do anything to you.
Ouch!
I'll be killed if I'm found.
Killed?
I'm not supposed to be alive.
Welcome back.
Mr.Ueda?
Are you the real Mr.Ueda?
Is there an imposter?
Where were you until now?
From ancient times, this village...
Where were you?
What're you talking about?
I was about to explain.
From ancient times, this village was researching
on how to conceive girls.
Do you know why?
Do you know why there are stone statues all over?
I figured the answer lay in the customs here.
That is why I went out last night to investigate.
That's when I discovered a picture.
A picture of a mother carrying a child...
Hey agony comes once every 25 years,
and it brings great disaster to this world.
There is only one way to prevent this disaster.
That's when a scary thought came to mind.
Perhaps the way to prevent it is...
What is it?
At that very moment... a masked man appeared.
That was Miracle Mitsui.
What happened after that?
When I came to, I found myself tied in a shed,
dressed very openly.
In other words, you fainted again?
So how did you escape?
A woman saved me.
A woman?
Go away.
Escape now, while you can.
What's going on here?
Please come to the shrine at ten tonight.
I have something to tell you.
She probably knows something important.
She holds the key to solving this case.
Oh, brother.
Will you let us know if you're alive?
Why didn't you come out right away?
I've been here all along.
You were the one who went out.
You should go out and look for us instead of
taking it easy here.
I had things to check on.
Do you know how worried I was?
How would I know? I only saw you now.
As I keep saying, you bad point is...
You can't think logically.
Shut up, Ueda.
What is it?
I have a word of caution for you.
Don't fall in love with me.
What?
I don't love you.
I have absolutely no interest in you.
I don't want a guy with a big penis.
Why are you wearing perfume, then?
It's not for you.
By spraying perfume on this card...
It'll stick to another card.
Like this.
Doesn't it seem like the card disappeard?
Did you do one of your magic tricks again?
Yes, to Miracle Mitsui.
I wanted to fool him.
I thought if I showed him I could make things
disappear, too, then he would confess the truth.
While he was looking at the card he drew,
I sprayed the perfume on the card.
Please put it back down.
Then I cut the deck so that the drawn card
would go on top of it.
It's gone.
There's no ace of spades in the deck, is there?
Did he confess to anything?
He said just one thing.
So?
One thing? That's one word.
Another infuriating thing happened.
He said he'd make something a little
more interesting vanish.
And he made that structure we saw vanish.
That disappeared?
During the latter part of the Edo period...
A young criminal came drifting into this village.
The lad fell in love with a village girl
and she gave birth to a baby girl.
The villagers took the child away from her
and kill the child.
After the mother lost her child...
she killed herself.
That's why once every 25 years.
that woman's grudge brings that misfortune
to the village.
There is only one way to prevent the misfortune.
They have to offer a girl from the village...
as a human sacrifice.
That was thought to be the only way to ease the
anger of that mother.
That is why this village cherishes young girls.
Every time a girl is offered as a sacrifice...
A stone statue is built by the road in her honor.
A stone statue is built by the road in honor.
How does that tradition relate to this case...
and your short pants?
Thos little statues and that stone structure...
Do you know what it must mean if they're still here?
So what about those pants?
Their tradition of human sacrifice continues.
And this turns out to be that once in every 25th year
It's a leap year?
I've seen this face somewhere...
Who was it?
An Okinawan singer.
"Please go around to the back."
Okinawa Shokichi?
No, that's a man.
Do you know?
Was it Minami Saori...
Aren't you the one who saved me?
I've committed a terrible sin.
I've tried to hide it, but...
I can't tolerate it any longer.
What I'm about to tell you is all true.
Please tell the outside world about this.
But we can't leave without the bridge.
The bridge hasn't disappeared.
It's right in front of you.
What do you mean?
What's wrong?
Where did she go?
She disappeared.
The bridge is gone, after all.
Where, in front of us, is it?
The color of the dirt is different.
What's the matter?
Isn't something odd?
There's another path on this side.
This is the path we took.
The bridge didn't disappear.
They just hid the path.
How could we have fallen for it?
It was all a trick.
He is a fraud, after all.
What a sight.
If he isn't you, then who is he?
He's as big as you.
Big?
It's not that big.
I'm talking about his body, not his thing.
And he seems quite built.
What are you doing?
He might be a police officer.
What makes you say that?
He's big and built.
That's shallow reasoning.
If he was bigger, he'd be with the Self-Defense Forces?
He had a callous on his middle finger.
Don't you get that from shooting practice?
But Maeda was supposed to be the only officer here.
A police officer�s pocketbook?
Isn't that blood?
Who is this?
Is this Maeda?
He looks completely different.
This is Maeda.
Then who's the guy who came here with us?
An imposter.
I doubt it.
He must be.
Where's the real Maeda?
That corpse?
The real Maeda was killed.
The man who we thought was Maeda is an imposter.
This is very complicated.
But why?
That's the question.
Wait a minute.
Maybe the imposter Maeda we saw was in cahoots
with Miracle Mitsui.
That would explain how he vanished.
The imposter Maeda was only pretending to be
afraid of Miracle Mitsui.
They had it all planned out from the start.
After the screen was drawn, the imposter
Maeda escaped from the scene on his own.
That's ridiculous.
What kind of trick did they use to make the
structure disappear?
At first, Yabe and I were standing here,
looking at the structure.
But when we tried to approach it, Miracle Mitsui stopped us.
You shouldn't snoop.
Unless you want to end up like Dr.Ueda.
Maybe he didn't want us to get close to the structure.
I wonder what these imprints are.
Was there another stone structure here?
I get it now.
I know what trick he used.
The structure here was demolished in the night.
Then they built something like it on that side.
Yabe and I were looking at it from that side.
If there was a huge mirror on this side...
Mirror?
I'll make that structure disappear.
What we saw was a mirror reflection.
Miracle Mitsui stood in front of the mirror,
spread out his cloak, and had the mirror removed.
Then the structure would vanish in the blink of an eye.
I get what you mean.
But that's stretching it.
Why?
Theoretically, that's a sound explanation.
But it's not something that he can do all alone.
What I'm saying is, he wasn't doing it alone.
What?
I don't think anybody here disappeared.
I think there's a lot of people in this village.
keeping an eye on us.
How many are you talking about?
Because there's a lot of them hiding and watching us,
we can't see who they are.
If that is the case, we shouldn't be talking here.
You're right.
See?
I've figured it all out.
Give up.
Let's run away, Ueda.
He's the imposter Maeda.
As you figured out... I'm not Maeda.
The real Maeda died on the day he arrived here.
Hey.
Hey!
Stop counting, Ueda.
There are about 21 or 22 of them.
You know too much.
We've been watching you two until now.
We wanted you to do as we wished.
As you already know...
300 years ago, the villagers here stole and killed the
child of a woman named Otsuru.
That was because the father of the child was a criminal.
The child was innocent.
Once every 25 years, we have to offer a human sacrifice
to Otsuru for it.
Or a great disaster will befall this village.
Long droughts, earthquakes, storms, insects, or worse.
The legend is true.
On the day that Maeda arrived in this village,
we were in the middle of that rite.
Open it!
Put her in!
What are you people doing!?
This village is cursed!
What are you talking about?
That is why we...
I'll be right over.
So I went to the station and pretended to be Maeda.
And I pretended to be terrified of Miracle Mitsui.
And just as I had planned, I came back here with you.
Just go in quietly!
Then I met Mitsui and disappeared.
I'm the one who go rid of all of Maeda's files.
That was supposed to keep out secret safe.
Mitsui pretended to be a spiritualist for you?
Mitsui was always a delusional man.
The optical illusions that he displayed were created
by the media people.
They were only using him for the entertainment.
He was eventually exposed as a fraud and
he disappeared from sight.
But half a year ago, he came back to the village.
After being caught by Maeda during our rite...
We thought of using Mitsui.
We wanted the people to think that Maeda had vanished
because of Mitsui's supernatural powers.
Why would anyone believe that?
I agree.
That's why when we heard that a great scholar like you
was coming to investigate, we felt very fortunate.
If we could fool you, then the people would
believe in Miracle Mitsui's powers.
All we needed was for you to go back and
testify to the miraculous events that you witnessed.
You may've been able to fool him if he was alone.
We made Mitsui's delusions come true.
If he declared that he'd make the bridge disappear,
we'd make it disappear.
If he declares that a structure would disappear,
then we'd help out with it.
It was all a who for you people.
Where are the others?
Don't worry.
Let me go!
I have authority.
I'm going to arrest you all.
Hello.
The other who came previously are alive, too.
Please forgive me!
You are...
She tried to expose our secret.
That is why we caught her and punished her.
I get it. What you saw at that time was...
What's the matter?
I didn't think you'd see through our tricks
if our whole village pulled together.
We can't let anybody leave here alive.
Village Head...
You're kidding.
That's the way!
Ueda has long arms!
I'm sorry.
You're useless.
Wait a minute.
Help.
Open it!
There's lava flowing underneath.
You'll die from the poisonous gas.
Close the door!
Stop!
They disappeared!
That can't be!
Where did they go?
We're right here!
It's crooked again.
How?
Don't be shocked yet.
Miracles do happen.
Mom...
Mom!
You're alive!
I'm not letting you go again. I'm sorry.
Quit fooling around!
Otsuru's curse will get us!
Hold it!
There's no such thing as a mother's curse.
None of your human sacrifices died.
They were running away from here.
What?
There's a secret passageway inside.
Once the door is closed, and it's pitch black inside,
you can see the light coming from the exit.
Didn't you always have droughts and storms?
It was pure coincidence that it happend on the
years where there was no rite.
But you took it as the mother's angry curse.
That's usually the case with legends.
That's the village bell.
Are you saying I'm a fraud? Don't be foolish!
I'll make one last great disappearance!
Are you content?
Are you glad that you've proven me a fraud?
You're a foolish woman.
I know of an authentic spiritualist.
Who is it? Where is he?
Au Revoir
Thanks for your hard work.
You've solved a very difficult case for us.
That was simple.
Thank you for coming here.
This is a big merit for you.
Why are you still here?
This is really goodbye.
I won't have to see you or the fake spiritualists.
You should do something about it.
You'll never find a girlfriend like that.
It's none of your business.
Maybe you should have a surgery to make it smaller.
Shut up.
She's talking in her sleep.
Smaller is better, Suke-san and Kaku-san.
What's with this woman?